The present disclosure relates to signal processing, and more specifically, to providing data security using equalization in a high speed serial communication channel.
Computing systems be constructed using components parts produced by disparate manufactures. Some of these manufactures can have protectable intellectual property rights or interests in these components even after the components are installed in a computing system owned by another party. The intellectual property can include, for example, the algorithms implemented in a component, a communication protocol used to interact with the component, and data produced or received by the component. Additionally, a manufacturer of a given system component can be tasked with ensuring that data or other intellectual property exchanged between components within a computing system is secure from unauthorized third party access. In some cases, the intellectual property associated with a given component installed in a computing system must be protected against unauthorized access by entities having physical access to the computing system.
One technique that can secure components (or the intellectual property associated with a component) of a computing system is to prevent physical intrusion into the component or into a portion of the computing system that exposes the component or the component's intellectual property. Unauthorized entities having physical access to a computing system, however, can obtain data from a protected component by directly probing a printed circuit board (PCB) coupling the component to the computing system. The captured data can be analyzed to discover protected intellectual property. Encryption is one technique currently used to address this issue. The intellectual property associated with a component can be protected by, for example, encrypting data before it is transmitted to a communication channel on the way to, or on the way from, the protected component. Encryption, however, only delays the compromise of the intellectual property. The availability of increasingly powerful computers, along with back-door and side-band attacks on encryption algorithms means that encryption alone cannot guarantee the security of protected components.